The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) has accorded environmental clearance (EC) and CRZ clearance to the Chennai Petroleum Corporation to install nine million tpa grass root Cauvery Basin Refinery. The project will come up at Panangudi village, Nagapattinam district in Tamil Nadu.
The refinery will have products such as LPG with a capacity of 676 kilo tpa, polypropylene of 532 kilo tpa, BS VI regular gasoline of 1,260 kilo tpa, BS VI premium gasoline of 540 kilo tpa, ATF of 300 kilo tpa, BS VI diesel of 3,998 kilo tpa, among others. The total area requirement for Cauvery Basin Refinery is 1,338,29 acre in Tamil Nadu and 6.33 acre in Karaikal region in the Union Territory of Puducherry (for pipeline corridor).
The existing refinery area is 618.29 acre, while the balance land of 726.33 acre (720 acre in Tamil Nadu and 6.33 acre in Puducherry) is under acquisition by CPCL. The estimated cost of the project is Rs 32,908 crore. The project will provide direct employment to 600 people and indirect employment to 1,000 people during operation phase of the refinery.
The total water requirement is 3,300 cum per hour and will be met from the desalination plant. The effluent will be treated in a new effluent treatment plant with a capacity of 550 cum per hour and then the treated water will be routed to RO-DM facility. The power requirement is 205 MW and will be met from internal captive power plant (170 MW) and Tamil Nadu state electricity board grid (35 MW).